


This is a Declaration of Faith

by musicalgirl4474



Series: Whumptober 2020 [15]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alex is kinda a character, Angst, But no-one knew, Character was dead before scene started, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Ouch, So., Whumptober 2020, but it's just his body.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:48:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27039721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicalgirl4474/pseuds/musicalgirl4474
Summary: This is the post-scene of Soul-Keeper, Keep Mine Instead. So there is ALL THE ANGST.Whumptober #15Into the UnknownPossession/Magical Healing/Science Gone WrongOhhh boy the amount of sheer shock I felt when seeing this prompt for today. OF COURSE I HAD TO WRITE THIS ONE! (It's mostly the second one)
Relationships: Gilbert du Motier Marquis de Lafayette & George Washington
Series: Whumptober 2020 [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956718
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	This is a Declaration of Faith

When Washington wakes, he does so with some surprise. He had expected that, if he were to wake, it would be to extreme pain, but he feels fine. A bit sore about the middle, and sticky as if sweat had dried on his skin (especially his forehead), but not as if he were in any danger of death. The sun is glaring through the window, hitting the small silver mirror above the wash-basin and reflecting back onto his bedspread. He blinks a few times, marveling at the way he seems to have healed overnight. Or perhaps he had perished, and this was some sort of Heaven? But no- he can hear the sounds of a war-camp from outside, and there would be no war such as this in Heaven.

Sitting up, Washington waits for the pain in his middle to swamp him. Surely his good feeling was due to a rather-more-than-was-healthy laudanum and the movement would wake his mind to the pain. But no. His muscles protested a little, as if they were just newly healed. Perhaps he had been asleep longer than he had thought, and his wound had had time to mend? He looked to the side of the bed, where a chair sat. A familiar blue coat was tossed on the back of the chair, but the man to whom it belonged was nowhere to be seen.

It was not a surprise to Washington that Alexander had been keeping watch over him, he just hoped the boy had gotten enough sleep himself. Alexander tended towards unhealthy patterns at the best of times; if he had been worrying about Washington, he may have been doing even worse than usual.

Rising from the bed, he swayed for a moment as vertigo overtook him. He would need food to stay on his feet for any period of time. Stretching carefully, he made his way to the room’s door, and stopped cold. That the stench of blood filled the room was not unexpected, he was sure he had bled quite a bit. But the smell grew stronger rather than weaker as he crossed the room.

He turns, and falls to the floor, horror spreading throughout his mind and miraculously-healed body. _Miraculously_. No. Oh God no. _Alexander_.

The boy, the _body_ is sprawled against the footboard of the bed, slumped bonelessly over his own still chest. The remnants of what could only be spell-casting littered the floor, and Washington found himself drawing a shaking finger through the circle of some kind of powder that had been sprinkled around the bed and now-corpse. Hamilton’s eyes are wide; irises a dark violet, sclera a deep and unsettling red. His pale right hand rested atop a gleaming knife, which must have been the cause of the deep cut in his left arm. If his boy had severed arteries, he would have bled out, and it would have been relatively quick. Various other spell-working materials littered the floor, dried herbs, ingredients for lotions and poultices, though Washington could not parse their use.

There is a knock on the door as Washington cradles the body, trying in vain to find some sign of life, however faint. He paid no attention to the sound, until a voice accompanied it.

“Alexandre?” It is Lafayette, calling through the closed door for a friend who would never answer him.

“Lafayette,” he says, and would have been horrified at the way his voice sounds at any other time; as things stand, he will forgive himself this weak moment.

Lafayette opens the door, and horror settles over his features. “Mon Dieu,” he breathes, “non, non, sil vous plait, non. . .” he closes the door behind him and collapses against the door.

“I should not ‘ave left last night,” he says, when he seems to have gathered his tenuous grasp of English back. “I knew ‘e was acting odd, but . . . oh-” and he moans, as a wounded animal. With a wrenching in his heart, Washington sets the dead body gently on the floor and goes to comfort the living soul.

“You could not have known.”

“I did not even know ‘e practiced Witchcraft,” Lafayette moaned into his shoulder when Washington pulls him into a hug. “I should at least have been able to know this . . .”

“Alexander was always a secretive soul,” Washington said quietly, carding fingers through Lafayette’s hair. The boy had already lost so much, to lose one of his best friends has been a blow too many. Washington doesn’t know yet if it has been too much for him as well.

“There is blood on your forehead,” Lafayette hiccoughed when he pulled back, drawing the sleeve of his own blue coat over his eyes. Unconsciously, Washington lifted a hand to finger at the spot he had thought to be congealed sweat. It was sticky, tacky, and when he looked down at his fingers again, flakes of half-dried blood were sticking to the pads of his fingers. “‘Tis a life-symbol,” Lafayette said quietly, “but not one powerful enough to transfer. . .” then he shook his head. “It would take an actual practitioner to know what happened here,” he said quietly, “and Hamilton sent Tench to your wife last night. I fear we will need to wait for his return to know what happened here.” His eyes clouded again. “Oh mon Dieu, ‘e sent ‘im away because ‘e knew ‘e might sense what ‘e was doing . . . George . . .” and he collapsed into tears again.

Washington held him and let his own tears fall. He was confused, he was in grief, but with Lafayette here, at least he had a purpose. He would comfort him and give orders for Hamilton’s body to be taken care of, to await Tench Tilghman’s return. The man was a witch-craft practitioner himself, and would be able to let them know if the spell-work had left any nast auras about the room. Until then, the room would need to be vacated. Washington let his mind sink through the grief to the apathetic banality of running a war-camp. Behind him, Alexander’s body stared blankly at the ceiling.

\-------

“There is nothing left of any danger in this room,” Tilghman said a few days later, voice tense with tears he hadn’t yet been able to shed for the young man laid out on the General’s bed. “The spell he worked is the kind known only to those who have brushed too close to death in their pasts.”

“What was it?” Doctor Mann asks, curious despite the young aide’s obvious discomfort.

“He summoned death and spoke with them as one of us might speak with an old friend. He offered his life, a life that has evaded death in the past, in return for the healing of the General.”

“I would suggest not telling the General this,” Doctor Mann said quietly. “I fear for his fortitude; he shall need his family now more than ever.”

“I both love and hate Hamilton for sending me for Lady Washington,” Tench admits to the doctor. “He had such care for the General that he would not let him go through this grief without her, and yet the General need not have gone through this grief if I had been here and able to convince Hamilton to find another way.”

“Did you know that he was a practitioner?”

“I had suspicions,” Tench admitted, “but he hid it well.”

Pulling the black sheet over the pale, lifeless form on the bed, the witch-craft practitioner who worked as an aide began the spell-craft to ready the body for burial.

**Author's Note:**

> So . . . the title is because Alexander doing what he did was a declaration of faith in Washington's ability to win the war. You know. If I haven't hurt your heart enough yet.


End file.
